Sweat it Out
by FoxRayne
Summary: The Battlestar loses all power when they enter a mysterious nebula causing the ship to feel like a suana. Kara and Lee work together to reboot a hatch but end up with more than they bargained for.... K/L ch. 2 soon!
1. Chapter 1

_**Sweat It Out**_

_**By FoxRayne**_

Timeline: Set sometime before Scar.

Author's notes: please excuse my complete ignorance when it comes to ships and technical

things but that's why fiction is so great...It _could _work like that! ;)

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Power was completely out in the Galactica. They were basically a piece of scrap metal floating among the stars.

The cooling systems were out leaving it like a sauna due to body heat and lack of air circulation.

Tyrol and the maintenance crew were working around the clock to fix the situation while everyone else sat by flashlight, the harsh

beams mixed with the suffocating heat giving them headaches. The fleet was sweating it out, fighting over the melting ice in the ice machines.

Starbuck sat propped up in a chair, a big chunk of ice poking out of her mouth, dribbling water down her chin. They had all decided

to move the chairs onto the flight deck and set up a bunch of flashlights for a common area and to be on hand if maintenance needed assistance.

It was the strangest thing. They had jumped into a system of nebulas and had suddenly lost power, as if the strange swirling systems

had sucked it right out of them.

"Anyone mind if I take off my pants?" Hotdog asked.

"Yes.." several people replied hastily in unison.

"Tough," he said, pulling them off and tossing them into the clothes pile.

"We might as well be a nudist colony. It's too hot for politely covering my ass!," Kat said, taking off her tank.

That earned her a few whistles to which she just shrugged and continued fanning herself with an old flight manual.

"Well frak, I just didn't want to be the first to do that," Starbuck muttered, and peeled her sticky tank off as well, leaving her sports bra.

More whistles and applause.

"As if we don't all see this every day at the lockers," Kat said, rolling her eyes.

"Or after drinks and a few rounds of strip triad," Lee added as he entered the area and sat next to Starbuck, kicking her feet off his seat.

Everyone chuckled half heartedly, too hot to get as rowdy as they usually did when all grouped together for some downtime.

"Good news," came Tyrols voice from the shadows until he entered into the glow of the flashlights.

"Found another barely melted block of ice?" Hotdog asked wistfully.

"Better, we got the backup water systems running as well as backup power but the old man says to save it until necessary," he told them, beaming.

"Oh thank the Gods!" Starbuck exclaimed, pumping her fist into the air.

"Never thought I'd be looking forward to a cold shower," Helo joked.

"Not so fast," Tyrol yelled as everyone was scrambling with flashlights towards the showers.

"Let me guess. The old man wants to ration the water on a must have basis," Lee groaned.

"Excellent guess Apollo," Tyrol grinned.

"Well I'm dumping my ration on my head," Hotdog huffed.

"Ok, so any idea when main power and water/cooling systems will be back up?" Starbuck asked reclaiming her seat.

"Soon, we're almost there. It's just a matter of rebooting and resetting things then we'll jump out of here," he explained, scratching his head.

"Need help?" Lee asked.

Tyrol turned around to grab a thick notebook and let it land with a heavy thud in Lee's lap.

"You and Starbuck can take all the hatch's and reset them so they'll be ready to go when everything is back up."

"Wonderful," Starbuck sighed, flashing back to her days in the academy learning all the codes and tweaks imperative to

living on a battleship incase of rare improbable occurrences such as this.

Xxxxxxxxx

Lee walked slightly ahead of Kara, flashlight in hand, as she lugged the thick notebook full of rebooting data

and system codes.

"Ok, hatch number one," Lee said when they reached the end of the hall.

Kara sat down against the wall and hunched over the notebook, flipping through the pages.

"A little light please," she commanded, tapping her bare toes impatiently on the floor.

He found her toes with the flashlight and trailed it up her bare leg, stopping at the notebook.

"Ok, pop off the panel under the security keys and read me the code inside," she instructed, reaching out to take the flashlight.

"T980DSFD20002," he read, shining the flashlight back towards the notebook.

She flipped a few pages and ran her finger down, eyebrows knit in concentration.

"Uh, ok. Yeah, ok. So you press the white and violet buttons and key in the code you just read me followed by J9009

and the door should open. Then we have to go inside and pop off another panel and do the same thing," she explained.

"Ok, so…" he pushed the white and violet buttons, "T980DSFD20002-J-9-0-0-9," he repeated slowly as he punched in the numbers.

The door clicked open and they scrambled inside, bumping against things in the dark.

"I think you have to hurry or it'll lock back up," she told him, shining the flashlight towards the panel.

"Well prop open the door," he told her, grunting as he popped off the panel.

"Frak that, it'll slam into me if you frak up," she retorted.

He mumbled something as he keyed in the code. He stopped and stood back, waiting for some sort of verification. Suddenly the door

slammed shut, a heavy locking sound echoing in their ears.

"Lee…"

They both reached for the hatch door trying to turn the wheel and push open.

"You have got to be kidding me," Lee said, giving one last push.

"Did you not key in the code correctly?" she asked accusatory.

"I did what you told me to!" he snatched the notebook from her, flashlight in mouth, frantically scanning the text.

"Kara," he mumbled over the flashlight.

"What?" she asked, looking down at where his finger rested.

She had read him the directions to reset the lock to a different set of codes. They were locked in until someone on the outside

keyed in a reset series of letters and numbers. The problem with that was that nobody would realize they should use the reset

codes instead of the original.

"Frak!" she exclaimed, snatching the flashlight from his mouth and poured over the text in the notebook, searching for a way out of this

mess that she created.

The flashlight started to flicker and then it shut off.

"The Gods have cursed me," Starbuck claimed, slamming the flashlight into her palm in hopes of a flicker of light.

_To be continued…._


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

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With an angry growl Starbuck chunked the flashlight into the enclosed room. It echoed as the flashlight clanged into God's knows what.

"Dammit Kara, there might have been batteries or something in here for that."

"Sorry," she grumbled, reached her arms out tentatively to explore her surroundings.

Her hands collided with his chest and he startled, grabbing her wrists.

"Please warn me before you start grabbing," he sighed, keeping a hold of one of her wrists as he guided them the a wall and sunk down to a sitting position.

"You aren't going to be pissy-boy with me the whole time we're trapped in here are ya?" she asked, trying to make light of the situation.

"Well it's kinda hard not to be a little frustrated with you considering it was you that got us into this mess," he retorted.

"Oh please mister '_need any help??'_," she mocked in a whiny voice.

"Not my fault he assigned me to an incompetent partner. Me and Kat would be on the 5th hatch by now," his voice mirroring the smirk on his face.

"I'm too hot for this," she muttered, not taking the bite. He knew her intense rivalry with Kat was getting to her more than usual.

"I'm going to feel around, see what I can find that might be useful," he said, changing the subject.

"There isn't anything in here," she told him, wiping sweat from the backs of her knees with her damp palms.

He banged around the room for awhile until his hand found her moist shoulder and he sat beside her.

"Well, I found our busted flashlight and I believe some women's underwear. At least I'm hoping it's womens," he said.

"Hm, those might be mine," she replied, a smile in her voice.

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the eerie ticks and clangs the sleeping ship made as she floated in space. Lee's breathing had become deep and steady so Kara wondered warily if he had drifted off to sleep. The thought was tempting for herself, the heat far too overwhelming. Sleep would help skip out on an hour or so of misery.

"Lee?" she whispered.

There was no answer so she curled up on the hard ground, welcoming the cool metal on her hot skin. Her knees barely rested against his thigh as a way to keep him near. She would never admit it to anyone but she had always been afraid of the dark. Not because of the possibility of monsters lurking in the shadows, but because she feared the abandonment that comes with being in total darkness.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lee woke, blinking his eyes in confusion. It's strange to wake up and open your eyes to a darkness that's just as deep as behind the curtain of your eyelids. It's like you can't open your eyes at all.

He rotated his neck, working out the tension caused by sleeping propped against a hard wall. He then leaned a little to the side, expecting to bump shoulders with Kara. When he realized she wasn't there his heart jumped momentarily.

He calmed when he realized her knees were next to his leg and he gently put his hand down to find her body. His fingertips grazed what felt like her hip bone and his other hand found the side of her head. Her hair was damp with sweat and her skin felt like fire.

Pursing his lips he gently blew air onto her face but stopped when he felt her stir. He lifted his hands off her slowly and sat still waiting for her to calm back into a deep sleep.

As awful and inconvienant it was to be trapped inside here on a day like this it was nice in a way to have her near and safe. You never know who's going to make it out alive in this war. You never know who's face you'll never see again at the end of a hard day. This just made one more day a safe day. She was safe here with him.

"Lee?" she asked groggily.

"Yeah?"

She sat up, sighing and groaning from falling asleep on something harder than her bunk.

"Just seeing if you were awake," she replied, her voice hoarse.

"I keep thinking about how nice that cold shower is gonna be," he said softly.

"I think i'd rather drink it than stand in it. I'm so frakking thirsty," she admitted.

"The power will be back up soon. They'll all realize the hatches aren't working and find us," he offered.

"Nothing ever comes that easy when it has to do with my suffering. I'm telling you, the God's have cursed me," she explained matter of factly.

He chuckled and rolled his eyes even though he knew she couldn't see him do so. He gave her shoulder a little squeeze and was surprised when he felt her lips graze his knuckles and hair tickle his fingers.

He then felt her hand wrap around his neck and lower his face to hers.

His lips grazed hers, reveling the feel of her moistened lips against his. He wanted his lips to remember the way hers felt against them. So full and damp. There was barely any pressure in the kiss. Lips just rested against lips, hot breath tickling at their faces.

He wanted to taste so he let his tongue trace the fullness of her barely parted lips, darting barely inside the gap between opened lips.

They startled apart when the lights suddenly glared down on them and the ship buzzed back to life.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_to be continued..._


End file.
